In a case where a family watches a television (TV) program, a priority might be given to a request of a specified person, e.g., a child, depending on a situation in the home. For example, it might happen that when a father watches a live broadcast of a baseball game in the living room, his child comes in the living room, saying that he or she wants to watch a TV drama. In such a case, it might also happen that the child changes the channel before getting consent of the father, depending on the home (a family's situation). In this kind of home, the father is unable to watch a want-to-watch program in his taste from midway.
In preparation for such a case, the program viewed just before the change of the channel can be recorded. When changing the channel of the viewing program, however, it is troublesome for the user to give an instruction to record the program through a manual operation. Even so, if recorded all times, or if a multiplicity of programs is recorded thoughtlessly, a capacity of a recording medium, e.g., a hard disk becomes deficient because of a large storage capacity used per hour in digital broadcasting. As a result, such a situation might arise that the user can not record the program which the user really desires to record.    [Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-311935]